Team corrects inaccuracies, elucidates measurements for 25 marine species

January 13, 2015 12:30 PM

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A team of scientists and undergraduate students have analyzed the body size for 25 marine species, including whales, sharks, squids, and other ocean giants. The project elucidates both the challenges of arriving at exact measurements and the human bias toward larger individuals.

"Several years ago I noticed that people kept staying that giant squids reached 60 feet in length, which is amazingly long," says Craig McClain, the assistant director of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N.C., and the primary author of the paper. "When I started actually looking...